NERC IRF and Royal Society URF 2021

This year, our School is providing earlier opportunities to hone fellowship applications with informal reviews and advice when preparing a proposal. 

Some NERC IRF candidates may be competitive for the Royal Society URF, which has an earlier closing date but accepts similar subject areas.

Please be aware that this is not demand management. There is no cap, ranking or other forms of selection for this process. The opportunity is simply about offering earlier chances to incorporate advice and feedback. Some advice might be that if eligibility rules and circumstances permit it, drafts intended for 2021 could be improved with time and better targeted at 2022. However, this would only be advice and not a barrier for applying in 2021. 

For detailed information on both schemes, visit their websites:   

NERC Independent Research Fellowships

Royal Society University Research Fellowships 

Internal timelines 

Support notes

Note 1 – Please download the Expression of Interest (EoI) form.

This is the standardised way in which we are gathering expressions of interest for this stage and it should be submitted via email by 12 July to take part in the EoI review stage. 

Email: researchorg.geos@ed.ac.uk 

Expression of Interest Form

Note 2 – When you are drafting your full proposal, there are some steps you should be taking in advance of submitting your complete draft. 

   i) Make sure you have registered and completed the set-up of your user profile on JES (NERC) or Flexi-grant (Royal Society). JES, in particular, needs approval from the Edinburgh Research Office. This can take a few days.  

   ii) Start thinking about your budget costings. Only you will know what your research plans are, but you should read the scheme terms and conditions to check for eligible costs. Pay close attention to allowable cost types and what type of partner/collaborator can receive funds (if any – many cannot). Once you have a plan of what activity you will be doing, consult with the School’s Research Grants team to set up an approved draft budget. These can be in draft form until quite late. Still, you should confirm early on if something is not eligible for your funder’s support so you can adjust your written plans accordingly. 

   iii) If you are going to be using any of the School’s research facilities, you must consult with the facility managers early to get accurate costings for use and to double-check capacity and capability.  

   iv) The Edinburgh Research Office (ERO) has a library of successful applications from its website. However, it is only available to current staff. There is only one NERC IRF in that library from 2016, so its format is becoming increasingly outdated. We do not have permission to share any others.   

   v) You may wish to seek advance support of any partners or collaborators outside the School who are important contributors to the project. Whilst you can wait for a final signed letter of support until you know for sure that you will apply, ensure you don’t leave it too late. We advise you seek advance agreement that these entities can write a letter of support for you and get it to you in good time. Please ensure the letter of support is on headed paper and includes a recent date.

Note 3 - At this stage, if you have nominated two School academics who can help review your proposal, we will send your application to them to review. Otherwise, we will still try to get a light review of your full proposal from other experienced academics, including the Director of Research. Send your complete proposal via email by this date.

Email: researchorg.geos@ed.ac.uk 

Please note that it is preferable to have drafted your proposal on JES or Flexigrant by this stage and provide us with a single PDF. Often this is possible using the print/export function from the submission system. However, you may not be able to print/export your application in this way. In that case, we still ask for a single PDF document rather than dealing with multiple attachments. 

Note 4 - Even if you do not participate in the review process up to this stage, this is a mandatory deadline for us to receive your draft Head of Department Support Letter. We have template/starting point letters for you to edit. The most impressive support letters are personalised, meaningful, and, where possible, should make reference to any in-kind or extra support the School will be providing to you. These templates are the bare minimum starting point, and you should take time editing them to suit you. You should include details of University or School specific resources, training courses, networks, etc., to bolster your case for holding your fellowship in the School of GeoSciences at the University instead of any other department. 

To learn more, email: researchorg.geos@ed.ac.uk

Note 5 - You might be one of many fellowship candidates targeting the submission deadline. Normally, we ask for your proposal to be almost finished around a week before the deadline. This is because before your proposal reaches your funder, the Edinburgh Research Office will need to read it to look for any errors and to make any constructive suggestions. Then, they can return your application to you online to make any last changes before you submit it. Please note that the Edinburgh Research Office needs to approve your application before submitting it fully by the funder deadline, even without any suggested changes.